


Heat Wave

by blindinglights



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Deputy Stiles Stilinski, M/M, Meet-Cute, Writer Derek Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 14:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7645552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindinglights/pseuds/blindinglights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Derek invaded Stiles' apartment when his A/C broke in the middle of summer during a heat wave and the one time it ended a bit differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heat Wave

**Author's Note:**

> S gave me the prompt: _it's-hot-as-balls-and-my-AC-is-broken-so-I'm-constantly-invading-your-apartment_
> 
> So I wrote it! Something like it, anyway. This was written for the "Summer Theme" week for the Sterek Shelter's "Sterek Summer Spectacle" challenge. It's not explicitly stated throughout, but Derek _is_ a werewolf. 
> 
> Thank you to C for the beta! And thank you to both C and S for being great teammates and making sure I 1) got this finished and 2) reading it over and offering help and encouragement. You're the best.
> 
> Bonus prompts used: Black speedo and pride flags.

Derek’s only been living back in Beacon Hills for six months, so it’s his first summer in his apartment. He knows things can go wrong all the time, that’s why there’s a maintenance crew hired anyway, but he isn’t expecting his air conditioner to go out this soon. Not right when the heat gets to the unbearable point, not when there’s a “record high” and just stepping out into the morning causes him to be drenched in sweat without even trying. At least, he was hoping. 

But that turns out to be not the case at all.

He’s in the kitchen trying to cook dinner when he hears the air conditioner make a loud clanging noise, like it’s trying its best to keep working, and then nothing. It’s not really until an hour later, when he’s taking the brownies out of the oven (the brownies he was planning to take to his parent’s house the next day) when he realizes that he’s drenched in sweat and the house feels warmer than usual. At first, he thinks maybe it’s because he cooked dinner and then used the oven, but when another hour passes and it's not cooled off at all inside? Yeah, he’s pretty certain his air conditioner stopped working.

Derek sighs and goes to look at it, to see the thermostat reads “88 degrees inside” and groans, resting his head against the wall. “Great,” he says to himself, and then looks up the number for the maintenance crew that the apartment complex says would help fix anything if need be. 

Only to realize that it’s late at night, too late for them to be able to answer the phone and come out. He leaves a message anyway, so that he knows someone will be able to come out first thing the next morning. After that, he opens his windows before leaving his apartment.

His neighbor that lives across from him is home. Derek can hear him singing to himself off key and can hear pans knocking against metal. For a few minutes, Derek just stands out in the hall, hesitating. At first, he doesn’t want to really bother his neighbor, but he’s not sure what else to do.

So, after a moment, Derek knocks on the door and waits. 

He doesn’t have to wait long before the door is opening, and his neighbor is standing in front of him shirtless and in boxers. Derek’s mouth goes dry and he has to clear his throat before he says, “My air conditioner broke.”

And the thing is, Derek may have a small crush on him, and he doesn’t even know his name except for “S. Stilinski” that he saw at the mailboxes downstairs. They’ve talked a grand total of five times. Three times that were just a “hi”, “welcome to the complex!”, and “let me know if you need anything!” There were no real introductions, but regardless Derek’s admired the good-looking guy from afar. 

Now that his air conditioner is broken, though, his neighbor’s words echoing in the back of his head. 

“You said if I needed anything,” Derek reminds him, scratching the back of his head nervously. His neighbor stares at him wordlessly. “Um, nevermind, it’s late so--”

“No wait!” his neighbor blurts out. “Um, come on in!” 

Derek hesitates for a second, but when his neighbor moves away from the door and waves his hand at the entirety of his apartment, Derek walks inside. The apartment feels cool against Derek’s overheated skin and he sighs with relief. 

“That sucks about your A/C. Can I offer you anything to drink? Water, beer, soda…?” his neighbor trails off, walking toward the kitchen. “I realize I don’t know your name. I’m Stiles.”

“Derek,” he says. “And I’ll take water, thanks.”

Derek sits down on the couch, looking around at Stiles’ living room. There’s a large TV in front of the couch, dark wood furniture, and a game controller on the coffee table. A few minutes pass before Stiles is in the living room with two waters and a bowl of snacks that it sets onto the coffee table. 

“So I’ve lived here for a few years and I’m just going to have to tell you that the maintenance? Sucks. They’ll eventually do the job, sure, but it sucks. Sometimes they’re just not reliable or good, and hours can be awful and unhelpful. You’ll see.”

Derek blinks. “That is good to know. I left them a voicemail, but if--”

“You’re hoping they fix it right away tomorrow because it’s over a hundred degrees outside?” Stiles finishes for him. Derek nods. “They’ll eventually get it done.”

A comfortable silence falls after that, both just watching the television, before Derek asks, “So what do you do?” 

“I’m a deputy. I work for my dad, who is the sheriff here in Beacon Hills. You?” 

“Writer. So I mostly work from home.” 

At that, Stiles gets a glint in his eye and the next thing Derek knows, he’s being asked about what he’s written and if he’s published any works yet. Stiles wants to know if he’s read anything and Derek ducks his head, telling him he probably hasn’t. That then devolves into them talking about Beacon Hills, their parents, and then even what television shows that they like.

And it’s nice, nicer than Derek expected it would be. He starts to find that not only is Stiles attractive, but he’s got a great personality and Derek’s crush is growing the more Stiles talks with his hands and animatedly tells Derek story after story about his friends and other deputies at the station. When it gets to be too late and Stiles is stretching and yawning, Stiles offers him the couch. Derek goes to decline the offer, but Stiles waves away any of his objections. So Derek ends up crashing on Stiles’ couch, surrounded by the unfamiliar, and a blanket that smells so much like Stiles. 

\--

It’s two weeks later when his air conditioner breaks again. It makes a loud groaning noise before it starts rattling. Derek sighs and gets up off the couch, sitting his laptop on his coffee table. The thermostat says it’s still on, but when he puts a hand against the vent, he can’t feel any air coming out. Derek sighs again and looks at the time on his phone, noting that someone from maintenance has to still be working for at least another half an hour, since it’s not late like it was last time. 

The phone rings, and rings, and rings until it hits voicemail. He leaves a short message, stating that it broke again and what apartment number he’s in before he hangs up. 

When he doesn’t hear from anyone thirty minutes later and he already has sweat rolling down the sides of his face and his bare chest, Derek’s pretty certain he’s not going to get the thing fixed until the next day. Great, Derek thinks, and grabs a hand towel to wipe his face down. 

It’s hot, he’s miserable, and he does not want to stay in this apartment any longer. So after some deliberation and hesitation, he makes his way out of his apartment to stand in front of his cute neighbor’s door, again. 

He knocks on the door and waits all of two minutes before Stiles is opening the door, grinning at him. 

“Happened again?” Stiles asks, sounding amused. 

“Yes,” Derek replies, “I tried calling them, but no one picked up the phone.”

“So, here you are,” Stiles says, motioning for Derek to come inside. “You have the worst luck, dude.”

\--

The third time his air conditioner breaks, it’s 6am and he’s about to head out soon anyway for coffee at the nearby cafe so he can work on his book. He calls his complex about maintenance coming out again to fix his air conditioner and is given a timeframe for it, so he heads out for the day. However, when he gets home the air conditioner still isn’t fixed and it’s so hot that his apartment feels like someone’s turned his heater on full blast. 

“This is ridiculous,” Derek grumbles as he opens his windows to try to get some sort of breeze into his place. There is none, though, and Derek ends up resting his head against the wall trying to figure out what he’ll do.

Derek calls the office, only to get told by them that they’re “sorry nobody has come out yet to fix it” and that it turns out that they can’t send anyone out until tomorrow.

“You could’ve said that earlier,” Derek tells them. “My apartment feels like hell.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Hale, but turns out they can’t make it today,” the lady on the phone apologizes.

Tomorrow, Derek thinks as he hangs up, tomorrow they’ll come in and fix it for hopefully the last time. 

Derek ends up walking across the hall again, knocking on Stiles’ door in hopes his neighbor is home. Turns out that yes, he is, when Stiles opens the door a few minutes later grinning brightly at him. 

“Did it break again?” Stiles asks, amusement in his voice. 

“Ha ha,” Derek mutters dryly. “If only my air conditioner didn’t break every other week.”

Stiles smirks, moving away so Derek can walk inside. “I just got home from shopping. You can stay for dinner.” 

When Derek walks into the living room, it’s to see a pride flag on the wall that wasn’t there the last time he was in Stiles’ apartment. 

It’s over a popcorn and a movie where Derek can’t stop looking over at the flag hanging up. Stiles catches him halfway through the movie and pokes him in the thigh to get his attention. Derek looks over at Stiles.

“I could tell you a story about that flag,” Stiles tells him. 

Derek says, “Yeah?” and stuffs more popcorn in his mouth for something more to do.

When Stiles says, “I once went to a pride parade and wore nothing else but that flag,” Derek chokes on the popcorn. Derek recovers quickly, getting a drink of water and trying not to picture Stiles walking down the street naked and covered up in a flag.

Nothing is working.

Especially when Stiles adds it with, “Actually, I was also wearing a black speedo. I was naked at first but,” Stiles gestures with his hand, pointing at himself and then at the flag. “Cops kid and a cop, so I didn’t want too much indecent exposure.”

Derek’s pretty sure that image isn’t being wiped out of his brain any time soon. Derek clears his throat and thanks god it’s dark in the room when he has to fidget on the couch to hide his growing interest. Derek’s pretty sure he’d like to wrap his arms around Stiles instead of that flag. 

“That sounds like it was fun,” Derek says, voice (surprisingly) steady. 

“It was,” Stiles agrees, sounding wistful. 

\--

When Derek’s air conditioner breaks for the fourth time, he’s starting to think that he has the worst luck ever and isn’t meant to live in a nice, cool apartment while the outside melts away in the hot death trap that it is. He’s pretty sure werewolves aren’t supposed to deal with hot weather. 

Derek runs a hand over his face and sighs into the phone when his sister picks up.

“Did it go out again, Derek?” his eldest sister asks. “What about going back over to your cute neighbor?”

“Laura.”

“He’s always letting you go over there when it does,” she says. “You had dinner together a few times, he seems nice…” she trails off and Derek growls. 

“He’s just nice, that’s all,” Derek says, even if maybe he would like it if they were more, if Derek wasn’t so nervous and scared to do anything about this crush he has on Stiles. 

Laura cackles over the receiver. “Just get out of your apartment and go knock on cutie’s door, okay?”

When Derek gets off the phone, he does head over to Stiles’, because where else would he have gone? Stiles opens the door and it smells heavenly inside. Derek breathes deep before asking, “What’re you making? That smells delicious.”

“You’re in luck, oh bad luck neighbor of mine,” Stiles says, letting him inside. “I made enough for both of us. Have you had dinner yet?”

Derek shakes his head, because no, he hasn’t. His A/C broke, he called his sister, and he never managed to make any food before he was high-tailing it across the hall to Stiles’ so he could get some cool air. But honestly, is it really just the cool air that he’s wanting? If he’s honest with himself, it’s really Stiles that he wants the most, because he could always go anywhere else or he could just deal with his apartment being hot. 

So Derek gives Stiles a small smile and says, “I could eat.” 

Maybe he should take his sister’s advice and just do something already, instead of continuing to pine away for his neighbor. 

“Awesome,” Stiles says. “Make yourself at home, I’ll grab you a beer.” 

\--

When his air conditioner breaks for the fifth time, Derek’s ready to give up. If it’s the fifth time it has happened, Derek’s pretty sure this just means that he needs an entirely new unit altogether, even if the maintenance crew says there’s nothing wrong it. Not really, at least. But Derek doesn’t believe them anymore. He has no idea why they just haven’t replaced it yet, but he’s going to make sure that they do this time. 

So Derek calls and leaves another voicemail with them and then calls the front office to tell them that he’s pretty he needs a new unit because seriously, _five_ times! 

Then Derek grabs a book, a bottle of water, and takes a seat on the floor outside of his apartment to wait for either a call back or for someone to arrive. He’s not going to bother Stiles again, no matter what. Even if Stiles tells him he’s okay with it and they’ve had some good times during this whole mess, Derek still feels like he’s bothering him. 

It’s an hour later before Derek hears someone walking toward him. He looks up, only to see Stiles staring down at him.

“Again?” Stiles asks.

Derek nods.

Stiles shakes his head, laughing. “I feel like you’re not meant to have a working air conditioner and at the worst time of year, too.”

“I called someone, demanded a new A/C unit altogether.”

“Good. So how long do you think it’ll be?”

“I called an hour ago, so any minute unless nobody shows up,” Derek replies. “Why?”

Stiles runs a hand through his hair, suddenly looking shy. “Uh, so I was curious if you wanted to go get a coffee with me? Or ice cream?”

“I’d love to.” Derek smiles, standing up and shutting his book.

“Really?” Stiles asks. “Um, so is that a yes to coffee? Or ice cream?” 

“We can do both. Ice cream sounds good right now.”

“Okay, yeah ice cream does. We can have coffee at my place later, if you want,” Stiles offers.

“That sounds great, Stiles.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
